Kevin McCormally: I’m Kevin McCormally of Kiplinger’s and I’m here with Pat Esswein the
Housing Editor of Kiplinger’r Personal Finance Magazine to talk about
selling a house in a buyers market. That would a difference a couple of
years and makes it use to be that was a sellers market you could put
anything on the market and it would sell like this buyers was gambling
and bidding and things are just turn around completely. How do you sell
you house in a buyers market?
Pat Esswein: Well probably the first thing you need to remember as a seller now is that
your house when you put it on the market is no longer your calm, it’s a
product you have to prepare it for sell and market it as such. So the three
things that anyone, any real estate agent will tell you, you need to do is to
clean it and diluter it and present it in good condition.
Kevin McCormally: Okay let’s take the first to the three C’s, cleaning what do you mean by
that I tried to keep my house clean now.
Pat Esswein: We all do but we all probably leave with more mess and dirt than most
buyers would like to see on a home so now it’s a time to clean your home
with ensures its life.
Kevin McCormally: What about diclutter in the house, what do you mean by that?
Pat Esswein: You know you are going to have to pack up everything when you move
anyway so why not do it now, pack it up and if don’t want to hire a storage
facility then line the boxes up neatly in your garage and that’s also an
indication to prospective buyers that you’re a serious seller.
Kevin McCormally: Okay and you talk about putting a house in a good condition and that
means repairs, what kind of repairs you are talking about, minor repairs?
Pat Esswein: We want to start with minor repairs, lots of us live with little imperfection
that we just don’t get around to fixing. Those don’t take a lot of money or
effort to fix.
Kevin McCormally: Like what I am talking about.
Pat Esswein: Well if you had a crack window, maybe you have as quickie front door
there is a core first impression or maybe a leaky water faucet.
Kevin McCormally: What about bigger repair, what is major repairs should you tackle them
before you sell your house?
Pat Esswein: You may have too, in this market if there are another houses to look at
buyers may walk away from your house if the house has major repair that
needs doing. Say, the roof needs fixing if money is an issue with this point
you may want to ask contractors if they willing accept at closing that’s one
way to handle that.
Kevin McCormally: So you might have to put a new roof on, what about renovating the
kitchens that something to do at this point?
Pat Esswein: No definitely not, you can do minor cosmetic updates like maybe
changing out of a faucet or replacing a countertop but this is definitely not
the time to put a lot of money into renovating a kitchen or bathroom in a
slower market like this you may not recruit the cost that sell.
Kevin McCormally: Okay thank you Pat.